Old_Zircon - 2015-01-09 Maybe he's being targeted by the same conspiracy that got Randy Quaid and possibly Sweeter Peter Palpin the One and Only Knight Of the Light Barbarian.

SteamPoweredKleenex - 2015-01-09 Damn. I had a brain fart for a second there and thought Peter Palpin was that Peter Pan Guy, Randy Constan. I figured he'd finally snapped or been arrested for something.

Xenocide - 2015-01-09 Well to be fair, those other women don't get residual checks every month with the words "Cosby Show" in the memo field.

Maggot Brain - 2015-01-09 What's that they say about not shitting where you eat? I'm sure Cosby figured that out years ago.

Bort - 2015-01-09 I can appreciate the spot Phylicia Rashad is in: basically being asked to turn against a friend for the sake of entertainment. Nobody should have to do that. And when a celebrity in that position says "I don't know about those accusations, all I know is that the accused has always been kind to people as far as I have seen", I get that they're trying to step out of the crosshairs gracefully. Fair enough.

It's when they start attacking the accusers that they become fair game. Sorry Phylicia, I extend my sympathies only so far.

Gunny McRifleson - 2015-01-09 It's about more than women. It's about...legacy. I'd say Cosby would agree with you on that.

Rodents of Unusual Size - 2015-01-09 Please keep watching the Cosby Show, I was on it you know. Did I mention how awesome the Cosby Show was?

SolRo - 2015-01-09 "And I would know, I kept a close eye on him a couple hours a week, and never saw him rape me or anyone else"

StanleyPain - 2015-01-09 Well, my thoughts on her have gone down the proverbial toilet. Like Bort said, it's one thing to just say "I have no idea about the validity of these claims but I stand by Cosby" but it's wholly another to do this bullshit, anti-woman garbage of claiming their all out for some meal-ticket as part of an organized conspiracy. Fuck you, you sell out.

CornOnTheCabre - 2015-01-09 I personally believe that Rashad never said these things, and she is being set-up by some kind of conspiracy to tear down her legacy as a black feminist icon.

John Holmes Motherfucker - 2015-01-09 If she believes her friend, she has to believe that his accusers are lying, and if they're lying, they're not just betraying Bill Cosby, they're also betraying all rape victims. So maybe she doesn't think she's being anti-woman if she seems to slip off the tight rope for a moment. Also, it's not fair to expect her to not care that it's HER legacy, not just Bill Cosby's, that may be about to be obliterated, for reasons that have nothing to do with her. Providing that she doesn't make any more public statements, and provided of course, that she really believes Cosby is innocent, In my opinion, she hasn't reached the point of no forgiveness. She should be given a chance at a dignified return to private life.

Bort - 2015-01-09 "If she believes her friend, she has to believe that his accusers are lying"

That works on robots, not necessarily on people. It would be possible for Phylicia to believe in her heart that Cosby is incapable of rape, while in her head realizing how unlikely it is that all 20+ women are lying.

infinite zest - 2015-01-09 Oh yeah. For a second there I forgot all about this. I hate to say it, but some of these women could be hopping on the bandwagon. But if that's the case, then C'mon ladies: BILL COSBY RAPED EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU! IF YOU DON'T REMEMBER IT, IT WAS BECAUSE OF THE GHB HE PERSONALLY PUT IN THE SUGAR FREE PUDDING! TIME TO GET PAID! And I don't really see that happening.

namtar - 2015-01-09 Forget Rashad, she's just a bougie black woman so stuck on white acceptance and what proper black culture should look like that she'll let a couple dozen nobodies fall on Cosby's sword in order to preserve the false legacy of acceptable, "dignified" black culture that the Cosby show presented to America.

The black people of the Cosby show have as much in common with actual black america as Leave it to Beaver does with whites.

I never did like how the Huxtable family was presented as an ideal that blacks should aspire to, while completely sidestepping any of the obstacles that black families might encounter in this culture. Seemed a little hypocritical, or dishonest at the very least.

Then it was revealed that Cosby had a child with a woman on the side. So much for Cosby's sainthood.

I would have been happy if Cosby's halo-tarnishing stopped there, all things considered.

John Holmes Motherfucker - 2015-01-11 >>I never did like how the Huxtable family was presented as an ideal that blacks should aspire to, while completely sidestepping any of the obstacles that black families might encounter in this culture. Seemed a little hypocritical, or dishonest at the very least.

(Sigh) Are you really going to force me to defend the rape guy? Very well...

Listen, the main obstacle that blacks have faced in this culture is that people just couldn't see them as middle-class professionals. Cosby didn't sidestep that. He confronted it . He challenged it. And it wasn't just bullshit.

You could argue that the life of Barak Obama has " as much in common with actual black america as Leave it to Beaver does with whites:, but Barak Obama isn't a TV show.

I

Shoebox Joe - 2015-01-11 I don't really think Cosby had that effect. If anything, that just validated the insipid, sniveling bigotry that sort of crap kowtows to. Unless you have enough endurance to show me an episode where he does confront that crap, then maybe I'd give it more thought.

If anything, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, All in the Family and The Jefferson's did it better because they acknowledged an abrasiveness.

Maggot Brain - 2015-01-11 Many valid points being made here. I'll say this for Cosby (the man), People love a sinner and they love to forgive a sinner but only if the fess up to their past wrongdoing. If Cosby had gone public about these allegations around the same time the truth about his illegitimate child came out by now the vast majority of people would have forgave and forgotten all about it by now.

As for the problem of his TV family it's not so much that The Huxtable's were being presented as an ideal African american family it's more so the fact The Huxtable's lived in a fucking bubble where "real" black people's problems don't exist. Family Guy did a joke about this years-and-years ago where Theo gets a girl knocked-up and Cosby just makes his normal stupid sounds.